


our love ain't water under the bridge

by fortunatefolly



Category: Holby City
Genre: Angst?, F/F, I Don't Even Know, ridiculousness?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 18:58:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10950726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunatefolly/pseuds/fortunatefolly
Summary: What if Serena comes back two years later, after having broken up with Bernie?





	our love ain't water under the bridge

**Author's Note:**

> Is it a fic? Or is it an outline? Who knows? Who cares? NOT I.
> 
> Sorry I haven't been posting any fic. Adulting is hard. Moving is hard. I might as well be a professional nomad at this point.

Six months. That’s how long it takes before Bernie gets _the_ call from Serena. 

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be coming back,” Serena says, from a beach somewhere in Barcelona. “I don’t think you should wait for me, Bernie. It could be years, it could be never.”

Bernie refuses to accept it at first, even after Serena ends the phone call insisting that they are broken up. Bernie tells Serena she’ll wait, for as long as Serena needs because there is nobody else for her. Her entire life in Holby is built around Serena, even before they started dating, Serena had always been the center. What would she even do without her sun?

But then a month goes by, and then another month, and before Bernie knows it, Serena has been gone for a whole year. They barely talk anymore - she’s not even sure what continent Serena is on. And it’s at the one year mark of Serena’s sabbatical that Charlotte and Cam and Morven, practically one of her own at this point, stage a full-on intervention. 

“Mum, look, I’ve spoken to Jason,” Cam says to her while they’re out for dinner at a local Italian bistro. Morven does her grimace smile, the one she puts on when she’s uncomfortable or thinking too hard, except she just looks constipated. “He says that according to Serena, you two have broken up.”

Bernie sighs and drops her dinner napkin from her lips, leans back in her chair and accepts defeat, defeat from her own emotions, from her relationship, from life.

“I suppose Jason is right,” Bernie says.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Charlotte asks.

“She just wasn’t sure of what she wanted. I figured I’d wait, in case,” Bernie says.

They continue to grill her throughout dinner - funny how the tables have turned. Bernie never thought the day would come when she would be at the receiving end of a family interrogation.

By the time dessert rolls around, the kids have left Bernie behind in their conversation as they piece together a master plan to help Bernie move on from Serena, a master plan that consists entirely of Bernie re-entering the dating world. Cameron takes Bernie’s phone from beside her plate and starts typing.

“No,” Bernie insists, snatching her phone back, rolls her eyes when she sees he’s already managed to download three different dating apps. “I am _not_ ready.”

Not ready is one way of putting it. She hasn’t been on the dating scene since England last had a female prime minister. Even after her divorce from Marcus, well, there had only been Serena.

“Mum, if Serena really isn’t coming back, there’s no reason for you to be alone,” Charlotte says, grabbing the phone back out of Bernie’s hand. Bernie sighs and orders dessert for everyone while the kids crowd around her phone and start filling in the details.

“No, don’t say she’s messy. Say she’s full of spunk,” Bernie hears Morven say as she concentrates entirely on her ice cream.

An hour later, she says goodbye to all of the kids, gives them all bear hugs, and rolls her eyes when they tell her to start exploring the apps as they head to their cars.

She steadfastly ignores her phone for the first month or so after that dinner. It keeps pinging throughout the day, enough to freak Bernie out and she starts silencing her phone entirely.

Then one Friday night, after an incredibly long shift, and an even longer team bonding session at Albie’s, Bernie opens up her laptop while sprawled in front of the television, opens up her personal email for the first time in weeks. She’s hoping to find an email from Serena, a beacon sent out from somewhere on this planet earth to remind Bernie that she isn’t forgotten. Instead, she is greeted with a flooded inbox, notifications from the various dating apps. Women of all sorts have sent her messages.

She pours herself a glass of white wine - she’s stopped drinking red, reminds her too much of Serena – and starts scrolling through the messages. She’s gotten a few from women as young as Cameron’s age. She almost spits out her wine at a message from one girl who actually was friends with Cameron in secondary school. She even starts off the message with _Ms. Wolfe_ and Bernie has to shut off her laptop and finish the rest of her wine before she can work up the courage to go through the rest of her inbox.

She laughs at a few of the messages, so she replies to them. She’s drunk, and what the hell, she’s got nothing to lose at this point.

The first date is a disaster. Kathy is an arts professor at the local university. She’s got wild, graying hair, jewelry bigger than Bernie’s mobile, and she spends the whole date talking about sending positive vibes out into the world to assist with healing humanity’s soul. Bernie leaves before dessert.

The next few aren’t much better. Margaret, a retired school teacher, wants to go the cinema. Bernie falls asleep because she’d been in theater for almost eight hours that day. They never make it to dinner. Susan, a pediatric surgeon, turns out to be a colleague of Marcus’s and they don’t even make it past the first glass of wine.

Bernie gives up after a few more dates, decides she’d much rather spend her free time catching up on work or spending time with her children rather than desperately fishing her brain for conversation topics while in the company of total strangers.

Her children have been much more willing to spend their free time with Bernie, and Bernie works hard to turn AAU into her ward. Before, when Serena was here, it had never really felt like hers. Sure, she was the co-lead and the trauma lead, but she had left the actual team leading to Serena while she mostly did her own work. And when Serena left, she had felt like a steward, watching over the kingdom while waiting for the queen to return. But now, she’s been working to change things the way she wants. Rearrange some of the beds, the workflow, the intake protocols. She’s not good about drawing up the paperwork – Morven assists with a lot of it- but Bernie has a lot of great ideas and she thinks the ward works better this way.

It’s during another team bonding session that Morven asks Bernie about the online dating, and when Bernie grunts and shrugs, she takes Bernie’s phone from her and her team spends the rest of the night picking out potential mates for her. A little piece of Bernie melts off and dies from mortification, but later, she finds that Morven actually has really great taste in women.

Morven starts up a conversation with a woman named Andrea on Bernie’s behalf.

“I go by Andie,” she says in her message.

She’s an architect, quite famous in her field, turns out. Professionally, she does commercial architecture design. As a hobby, she designs homes, mostly for fun, sometimes for close friends and family who are thinking of building new homes.

Their first date is at the local aquarium. Bernie hasn’t been since her children were in grade school. She’d forgotten how big the place actually was. Bernie learns that Andie has a fondness for puffins. Bernie talks about her work, her kids. They pass by a tank with a fish that is the same color as Serena’s blouse, and Bernie’s voice gets caught in her throat. But Andie tells some joke about clown fish that makes Bernie chuckle, so Bernie reminds herself to breathe, decides the radio silence from Serena over the last few months is indication she’s doing the right thing by being out on this date.

At the end of their tour of the aquarium, Bernie finds that she doesn’t want to say goodnight just yet. And Andie seems to feel the same way - she lingers outside the doors, wrapped in her coat, not really saying goodbye, and when Bernie points towards a pub across the street with raised eyebrows, Andie splits into a smile and nods.

Andie’s got brunette hair, a bit darker than Serena’s, much longer. It’s thick and wavy and cascades over her shoulder like waterfall and Bernie has to sit on her hand so she doesn’t reach out and touch it. Doesn’t seem appropriate for a first date.

When they finally do have enough wine, Bernie calls a cab - it’s late and she has an early morning shift the morning. Andie kisses her on the cheek, tells her she had a fantastic time. And the next morning, when Bernie gets a follow up text, she finds herself smiling in a way she hasn’t in a long, long time.

They go slowly - given Bernie’s hectic work schedule, there isn’t an option for anything other than slow. On their fifth date, Bernie tells Andie about Serena, just mentions in passing that she had a serious partner and they broke up about a year ago, that she only became brave enough later in life to start dating women.

Andie tells Bernie she’s been dating women her whole life, had her first kiss with a woman when she was seventeen. Bernie wishes for a second that maybe she had been brave like Andie, but then takes that wish back immediately because then she wouldn’t have her children.

It takes about three months before Bernie introduces Andie to her kids. She invites her to a hang at Albie’s, and AAU falls in love with Andie almost instantly. Bernie had expected some pushback, perhaps remnants of loyalty for the missing co-lead of AAU, except, well maybe they’ve all moved on from their friendship break up from Serena too.

Bernie finds herself thinking about Serena less and less. With Alex, Bernie had woken up one day and found she didn’t miss her, didn’t think about her, didn’t really need her. Bernie still feels like she’s been punched in the gut when Serena does spring to mind, but her subconscious has started pulling the punches, just a little less pain each time. Bernie doesn’t know if she is heartbroken or relieved that Serena isn’t the first thought that pops into her mind in the mornings, or when she’s sitting in their office, of when she stops at Pulses.

Six months into her relationship with Andie, they take a weekend away. Bernie makes sure Ric is available, goes through all of her patients in painstaking detail, to the point where Morven has to practically shove Bernie out the door. Andie says it’s a surprise - she’s planned the whole thing, and they end up in Brighton.

Bernie goes still when Andie drives up to an overlook with the sea stretching in front of them. Serena had done the very same thing, taken Bernie for a weekend at the beach, after Ukraine, before Elinor.

“Is this alright?” Andie asks when Bernie’s been quiet for too long.

“Oh sorry, right, yes, perfect,” she says, pushes Serena out of her mind as she leans over and gives her girlfriend a kiss.

Kissing Andie, having sex with Andie, it feels simple, delightful. No fireworks the way she had felt with Serena, but not the dull dread she had felt with Marcus. Maybe this is better, middle ground. Middle ground is safe, middle ground can’t end in disaster or tormented heartbreak.

They stroll through downtown, their hands entwined. They make love in their fancy hotel room, have breakfast in bed in their robes, go for a morning run along the sea. Andie runs, like Bernie, faster than Bernie actually, and she likes that. It’s been a while since she’s had someone push her physically, push her beyond her limits.

Bernie tries with all her might to not think of Serena all weekend. Serena is gone. Last she heard, she was in America, settled back in Boston as a guest lecturer at Harvard. Serena isn’t coming back, and Andie makes Bernie smile.

When they return on Sunday evening, Bernie invites Andie to stay over at her flat. They’ve spent all weekend together, and yet somehow, she isn’t sick of her. Maybe she really is falling for this woman. Bernie didn’t think it would be possible, for her to fall for another person after Serena. She doubts she’ll ever fall as hard again, but it’s happening. Andie wakes her up with slow morning kisses, walks her to the hospital and they sit at a table in Pulses and Andie tells a funny story about work, funny enough to have Bernie honking over her cup of coffee. Bernie doesn’t care if the entire lobby can hear her - her girlfriend is funny and can make her laugh and shouldn't she be allowed to be happy?

She finally catches her breath and looks up only to feel her blood chill in her veins. She sees a flash of short, brunette hair fly past the EMT down the corridor. The kind of short, brunette hair that looked exactly like Serena’s.

“Darling, you okay?” Andie asks, and Bernie shakes herself out of shock and plasters on a smile.

“Sorry, yes. Just got distracted,” she says. “My shift starts soon.”

She looks down at her wristwatch, grimaces at the time, and turns back up.

“I’ll call you,” she says, leans in for a quick peck on the cheek.

“Okay,” Andie says, takes Bernie’s hand in hers. “I had a great time this weekend.”

“Me too,” Bernie says with a squeeze, says her final goodbyes and strolls towards AAU.

That couldn’t have been Serena. It’s not the first time this has happened, Bernie thinking she’d seen Serena somewhere. The first few months she was gone, Bernie had seen her everywhere, at the grocery store, at the gas station, at Albies. Every brunette head had made Bernie’s stomach drop.

She shakes it off and swipes her keycard, opens the door, and her entire body lurches to a stop at the sight in front of her. Serena, hugging Morven with all her might, her eyes closed as she relishes the hug.

So Bernie hadn’t been crazy. Almost two years, and Serena has finally returned after having given absolutely no notice to anybody. She watches Morven let Serena go, feels her blood chill as Serena opens her eyes and turns to Jasmine, who also gives her a hug. Not as long or hard as Morven’s, but still full of affection.

“Oh, Ms.Wolfe!” Jasmine shouts across the ward, and Bernie jerks her head up at the sound, and then sees Serena jolt her head. They make eye contact, and Bernie opens her mouth to say hello, to say anything, but she finds herself at a loss for words, just closes her mouth back up and continues to stare.

“Bernie,” Serena says, walks towards her.

“Um, hello,” Bernie manages, her voice coarse and grainy, the way it gets when she’s overcome with emotion.

Serena walks closer and Bernie sticks out her hand. She sees a flash of hurt in Serena’s eyes, gone as quickly as it appeared, and she takes Bernie’s hand. Her hand is warm, the way it always was, Bernie’s fingers before Bernie pulls her hand away and shoves it into her pocket.

“When, um, when did you get back?” Bernie asks.

“Yesterday,” Serena says.

Bernie doesn’t know what to say to her. Almost a year of no contact - doesn’t that make them practically strangers? Strangers who have seen each other naked, strangers who had once thought of each other as soulmates.

“Well, good,” Bernie says, unsure of how else to react. She’s got so many questions, and yet, she has suddenly lost the desire to have any of them answered. Instead, she feels a swell of anger. Serena doesn’t communicate with her for almost a year, and then decides it’s okay to suddenly show up. Is she back for good? Is she here to work? Who else knows she’s back? What does she want from Bernie?

Bernie says she needs to get to work and excuses herself, speed walks to the locker room and changes into her scrubs. By the time she returns, Serena is gone and Bernie is both relieved and disappointed.

She’s going through a patient chart when Jasmine sidles up to her, hand full of test results.

“Ms.Campbell looks in good spirits,” she says, and Bernie nods. “Do you know if she’s back for good?”

“No idea,” Bernie says.

“Oh, I thought…didn’t she say?” Jasmine asks.

“Nope,” Bernie responds, takes the test results from Jasmine and marches off towards her patient.

About halfway through her shift, she’s called up to Mr.Hanssen’s office. It feels almost like she’s being called up to the principal, except she’s done nothing wrong, as far as she knows. She opens the door to find him sitting at this desk, Serena watching Bernie from the other side.

“Ah, Ms.Wolfe, thank you for joining us,” he says, gesturing at the empty chair next to Serena.

“Uh, what’s this about?” Bernie asks.

“As you can see, Ms.Campbell has returned,” he says, and Bernie nods.

“Okay.” 

“She is interested in working at Holby City Hospital again,” he says.

Bernie turns to Serena, who offers Bernie a small smile.

“Okay.”

“About a year ago, Ms.Campbell officially handed in her resignation,” Hanssen says, and Bernie nods. She remembers that conversation, of Hanssen asking her if she knew why Serena had mailed in an official letter of resignation. Bernie had shrugged and said she didn’t know. “So if we were to hire her back, it would have to be as a new hire. And whether she would join you again on AAU is up to you.”

“Excuse me?” Bernie asks.

“I am giving you a choice, Ms.Wolfe. If you feel AAU doesn’t need anymore help, there is more than enough room on Keller for Ms.Campbell. But if you feel her services would be beneficial, then I would suggest you strongly consider Ms.Campbell re-joining you as co-lead,” he says.

Bernie leans back in her chair and has to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Of course Hanssen is leaving the decision in her hands. AAU has been running fine, even without Ric. The locum surgeon has been more than able to pull his weight and Bernie has been able to turn the ward into her own, has been able to make all of the calls by herself for the first time since leaving the army.

“I, um,” Bernie mutters.

“Look, I know it’s a lot. You don’t have to decide now,” Serena offers, the first thing she says all meeting.

Bernie sighs and leans forward, nods her head once.

“If Ms.Campbell wants to join us on AAU again, she is more than welcome to. If she wants to join Keller, that is her prerogative. If she joins us, we wouldn’t need a locum anymore,” Bernie says, gets up and walks out of the office with her head held high.

So maybe she is angrier than she had thought she was about Serena, the way she had left, the way she had returned, gave Bernie no choice in the matter. Maybe it’s payback for the way Bernie had run off to Ukraine. But this hardly feels comparable.

She gets home and stews all night, is still stewing when she and Andie meet for dinner the following night.

“Honey what is going on with you?” Andie finally asks, shutting off the movie and turning to Bernie on the couch.

She sighs and drops her shoulders, throws her head against the back of the couch.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly.

“No, don’t apologize. Tell me what’s bothering you,” Andie says, and Bernie feels her lips tilt up into a small smile. Andie is probably the most adult-like adult Bernie has ever been partnered with. She doesn’t play games, doesn’t hide her emotions, and Bernie appreciates it. It’s so polar opposite to her own nature, but she’s learning and experiencing that the direct communication does away with a lot of potential landmines.

“Serena is back,” Bernie says.

“Wait, Serena, as in your ex, is back?” Andie asks, and Bernie nods. “I thought she wasn’t ever coming back.”

“That’s what I thought too,” Bernie says.

“Are you okay?” Andie asks.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Bernie says, and Andie giggles a little, smacks Bernie on the shoulder.

“Right, and I’m the Easter Bunny,” Andie says, and Bernie laughs a little.

“Sorry, I just, it’s not fair of her to just show up like this, without warning,” Bernie says.

“Have you talked to her?”

“No, well, not in length. But I think she’s going to come and work on AAU again,” Bernie says.

“Oh,” Andie says, leaning back against the couch. “Will that be okay?”

“Sure, why not. It’s not like I’m still in love with her,” Bernie says, shrugs.

“I see,” Andie says quietly, eyebrows raised in disbelieving concern.

“Really, I’m not,” she says, not sure who she’s trying to convince.

Bernie turns the television back on, signaling the end of the conversation. She’s realizing now that she’d never actually quite dealt with all of the emotions following Serena’s departure. She’d boxed them away and shoved them into a dark corner, the way she always does with anything that could potentially hurt her.

Serena does end up back on AAU. Hanssen calls her back into his office, just the two of them this time, and asks her if she is truly okay with Serena’s return to the ward. Bernie is surprised he’s willing to give her so much power in the decision. She’d always assumed Serena was his favorite and she was just the extra doll that came along with Serena, something he just tolerated because of his affinity for his once second in command.

She assures him that it’s fine, that ultimately for the ward, it would be best if Serena were there instead of some locum.

Serena takes a week to settle back into her house, starts work up again. And they tiptoe around each other, a dance of skates on very thin ice, the weight of their history surging beneath them. One wrong step and they could both plummet, and that’s the last thing Bernie wants. So she tip toes. Is polite and never loses her temper and never discusses anything personal with Serena, rarely takes any shifts that overlap with hers.

About a month into Serena’s return, Morven suggests a team bonding session at Albie’s.

“Oh, I’ve got plans,” Bernie says awkwardly when all her eyes turn toward her.

“Oh no!” Morven exclaims. “But it’s the first real time we can all go out.”

“Are your plans with Andie?” Jasmine asks, and Bernie sees Serena’s head jerk up in surprise. She doubts Serena doesn’t know about Andie. Serena Campbell is a resourceful woman with an ear plugged directly into the grapevine.

“Yup,” Bernie says.

“Just come for a bit. Andie can join us,” Jasmine suggests, and Bernie feels heat creep up her neck. She does her best to keep her expression steely, to prevent the red from flushing into her cheeks as well.

Normally, it wouldn’t be weird for Andie to come to drinks. She’s met the whole team, has gone to drinks before. But Serena is there, and poor Jasmine probably doesn’t understand the weight of what she’s done. Or maybe there is no weight. Maybe Serena has truly moved on and it’s not awkward for anyone but Bernie.

“Uh, I can ask, if that’s okay with you all,” Bernie says, makes sure to look directly at Serena, who just smiles and nods politely.

Andie agrees - asks twice if it’ll be okay with Bernie, and with Serena. Bernie says she can’t promise it won’t be awkward, but she’s completely fine with it.

It’s not as awkward as Bernie was expecting it to be. It’s not sunshine and rainbows, but Serena is polite and Andie is a trooper. They smile through two rounds of drinks, though Bernie swears she can feel Serena glaring daggers at her and Andie when she’s not looking.

Cam sits there, eyes moving back and forth between Serena and Bernie like it’s the final tie-breaking play of the Wimbledon finals. Bernie just rolls her eyes and lets her fingers toy with Andie’s long, brown hair, let’s her hand disappear into the mane and rest against the back of Andie’s neck.

Andie leans into the touch, then leans into Bernie’s ear and whispers all of the naughty things she’d rather be doing to her if they were home. And that’s enough to motivate Bernie to say goodnight.

She has a feeling she and Serena will have their reckoning one day. But until then, she will chug forward. Because that’s what Bernie does. Keep her head down and chug forward.

****

It takes Serena an entire fifteen seconds after Bernie and Andie’s exit from Albie’s for her to turn to the rest of the AAU gang with wide and desperate eyes.

“So they’re really a thing then,” she says, glass of wine in hand, which she promptly empties in one go. She doesn’t drink that much anymore, rarely does she do more than two glasses a night. A hard-learned lesson she plans to only learn once. But tonight, she feels a little justified.

“Well, it’s been over six months now, I think,” Morven says, and Serena nods her head.

“Right,” she mumbles.

It hadn’t taken Serena long after leaving Holby to start missing Bernie. Only a few days into her sabbatical did she realize she hated the feeling of waking up alone, of going to bed by herself. She had kept herself warm with extra blankets and wine but also knew she needed the time to herself to figure things out, to learn how to live life without being a mother.

When she had broken up with Bernie, it had been more out of desperation than anything else. Almost a year since Elinor’s death and the grief hadn’t gotten any better, any more distant. Serena was positive she would never get better, that her current broken state would be her status quo for the rest of her life. And she didn’t want to be the dead weight that dragged Bernie down into the abyss with her.

Bernie had been noble, had insisted she would wait. So Serena had put more and more distance between them, fewer messages, calls, emails. She told herself it was to protect Bernie, to help her move on and find happiness. But also a small part of Serena didn’t want the reminder of the life she could never have. Hearing Bernie’s voice made her ache for happiness, made her ache for life with a woman she could never have because Serena had become nothing more than an empty husk of a human being.

The colossal stupidity of her action hadn’t hit her until about six months ago, when she was in the middle of her guest lecture stint in Boston. She was out at a bar with some coworkers when a young blonde woman had sent over a drink. Serena had spent the rest of the night talking to her, had realized she had spent the whole time comparing this woman to the love of her life she had abandoned on the other side of pond.

Except she’s come back to find Bernie has moved on with Andie. Another brunette. Serena’s not sure why she’s surprised. Bernie definitely has a type, though thinking of herself as just a type for Bernie makes her skin crawl. Morven had mentioned it in passing, about Bernie having a girlfriend, and Serena had nearly fainted, like the floor had been ripped out from under her.

She makes nice with Andie, with Bernie. She doesn’t know how to even begin having a conversation with Bernie about it all. After all, she’s the one who ended it. And after seeing Bernie with Andie, Serena wonders if it’s even worth it to pursue anything. Maybe Andie is good to her, can be good to her in a way Serena never can.

“She doesn’t love her,” Morven blurts out, and Serena raises her eyebrows. Cam gives Morven a quirked eyebrow as well, and she shrugs at him. “What? It’s true.”

“What are you saying?” Serena asks.

“I don’t think Bernie feels about Andie the way she did, does, about you,” Morven says. Serena turns to Cameron, who keeps his eyes affixed to the beer in his hand.

“I thought she’d moved on,” Serena says.

“Well, we suffered enough hangovers _trying_ to help her move on,” Cameron says. “My mum can drink a 250-pound Irish man under the table.”

The rest of the team murmurs in agreement.

Cam then changes the subject, something about an unruly patient that they dealt with today. It’s not until the rest of the group has gone and it’s just him and Morven left that he brings up his mother again.

“Look, it took mum forever to move on,” he says. “She would have waited, you know, forever.”

Serena just nods.

“I know you were dealing with a lot, I get it, and everything was awful. But she deserves someone who will love her,” he says, and Serena nods and feels tears prick at her eyes. She hates to admit it, but she had been pretty awful to Bernie. She was grieving, sure, but that doesn’t excuse her cruelty. She had had moments when she looked in the mirror and saw the very worst of her mother in herself.

“Are you sure you know what you want?” Cameron asks, and Serena nods.

“I, um, I didn’t leave your mother because I stopped loving her. I just, you know,” Serena trails off, but Cam doesn’t let her off the hook, just stares at her intently with his hands wrapped around his beer. “I didn’t think I would be capable of loving your mother the way she deserved.”

“And now?” he asks.

“I can’t say I’ll ever be the same again. But things are different. Better,” she says.

“Because if you’re just going to leave her in the lurch again…”

“I promise that’s not why I’m back. I’m here, for good, in whatever way your mother will have me. Even if it’s just as friends,” Serena says.

“Okay, good,” he says.

He leans back in his chair, lets the bottle of beer sit on his jeans and Morven leans over and squeezes Cameron’s hand in hers. Serena smiles at the sight. Morven had told her one morning, the way she had engineering Cameron’s return to Holby. Bernie had been scheming for a long time, about how to get them together, and Bernie Wolfe had gotten her way.

“Morven’s right. She’s not over you,” Cam says.

“What about Andie?”

“Oh I mean, mum cares for her, a lot. But she’s, well, she’s not you,” he says.

“So you think I should pursue her?”

He looks at Morven, who nods eagerly and turns to Serena with wide eyes, continues to nod.

“Yes, definitely,” she says.

“Go slowly? I can’t say how receptive she’ll be,” he says. “It took her a long time to get this far.”

Serena can imagine. Bernie, her ever so steadfast medic. Well, not hers anymore. She’s not sure she has the right to call her that anymore.

But she gets the green light from Cameron and Morven, and Charlotte’s by way of Cameron, so she decides maybe it’s worth a shot, trying to woo Bernie. Or at the very least have a conversation with Bernie that lasts more than five seconds.

Armed with her new information, Serena goes about making a plan. After all, who is Serena Campbell without a plan in place? Lost and wandering the world for two years, and Serena is done being that person.

She decides maybe wooing Bernie isn’t the best place to start. Friendship feels safer, like Bernie could be receptive to that. So Serena starts small, a coffee placed on Bernie’s desk before she arrives. When Bernie arrives, she eyes it suspiciously, perhaps for a second too long, and Serena just mumbles, “It’s just a coffee.”

“Oh, thanks,” Bernie says. “I already, um, thank you.”

She takes a small sip, then takes it with her to the locker room. Score one for Serena.

She does her best not to come on too strong. Serena’s always convinced herself she’s got a stiff upper lip, but truth is she is and could never be her mother. Her therapist in America had helped her to finally accept that, that her emotions often pour out of her faster than she can manage. So she waits until they have another joint morning shift, and this time, she brings a pastry with a coffee and leaves a note. “It’s medicinal :)”

She returns later in the afternoon to find the coffee gone and the pastry half consumed. Pastries were always Serena’s thing - Bernie would always steal bite or two, but she never finished a whole one on its own. That brings her some comfort, the small things that don’t change.

It’s not just the coffees and pastries. Serena does her best to try and fit into the AAU system that Bernie has redesigned for herself. Some things bother her – the new chart filing method bugs Serena to no end. But after she learns it, she has to admit it’s the most efficient system she’s utilized so far. Bernie may hate administrative work, but she’s not half bad.

A few weeks later, Serena has an IVC reconstruction, not a surgery she gets to do often, not a surgery Holby sees unless Serena is there. So she invites Bernie in to assist. She’s got good hands, and they spend the next six hours standing across from each other, an open abdominal cavity between them.

It’s the longest they’ve been in any space together since Serena’s come back, and they’re both so focused on the surgery that there isn’t time or mental energy for awkwardness. The surgery is a success, and Serena feels more alive than she has in some time, than she has in years. It’s like the grief is finally far away enough that there is room inside of her to feel other things, like joy.

“That was extraordinary Ms.Campbell,” Bernie says as they wash up afterwards.

“Thank you Ms.Wolfe,” Serena returns, giving Bernie a smirk and a wink and Bernie laughs, just a small chortle, before she dries her hands and walks out.

They don’t get to see each other much after that, different shifts, busy ward, but late Friday night, as they’re both packing up for the day, the red phone rings and a young boy with a stab wound to the abdomen is rolled in through the doors.

“Damn it,” Bernie says, throwing off her coat and racing out the door, Serena hot on her heels.

They run the boy into theater immediately, and Bernie has Fletch call Andie for her, puts her on speakerphone and Serena listens to the whole conversation while she’s got her hands deep in a teenage boy’s abdominal cavity.

“Andie I am so sorry,” Bernie says, the audio on speakerphone.

“Hon, no it’s fine. I’ll just reschedule,” she hears, the volume on so high the speakers are crackling.

“I promise we’ll do something next weekend,” Bernie pleads while trying to insert a stent into a collapsed vein.

“Okay. Just come over, whenever you’re done,” Andie says.

“Okay, bye!” Bernie says, and Fletch hits the end button.

Serena manages to hold her tongue for an entire thirty seconds after the end of the call before commenting.

“She’s very understanding,” she says, the first real poke she’s given the beast. Not even a poke, just a small prod.

“Oh yes, she is,” Bernie says. “Don’t know where she finds it, but she’s got a bottomless supply of patience.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Serena says.

“How, um, how long have you two been together?” Serena asks, and Bernie gives her a look.

She can only see her eyes over her mask, but they say more than enough.

They finish the rest of the surgery in silence, and as soon as the patient is rolled out and they are left alone in the scrub room, Serena turns to Bernie, her hands resting on the sink.

“I’m sorry, earlier, if that was intrusive of me,” she says.

“No, it’s just, just took me by surprise,” Bernie says.

“Look, I know things have been weird since my return, but, I,” Serena says nervously, lets her hands fall to her sides and leans her hip against the sink, turns towards Bernie, who throws away the paper towel and reaches for the chart hanging on the wall. “We were, once, I mean, you were, are, still, um, I care about you. And I hope we can be friends again,” Serena. finishes

Bernie looks up from jotting down notes in her chart, presses her lips together and studies Serena with those deep, dark brown eyes and for a second, Serena forgets to breathe. It’s been so long since Bernie’s actually looked at her instead of seeing through her. She’d forgotten how quickly, how intensely her body reacts to that gaze.

“Sure, friends,” Bernie says, sticking out her hand. “Truce?”

“Truce,” Serena says, offers her a smile, takes Bernie’s hand in hers and feels the air crackle between them. Bernie must feel it too because she withdraws her hand and quickly goes back to scribbling in the chart, a flush of red hiding behind her hears.

It’s slow going still, even after their declaration to rekindle their friendship. Bernie still spends most of her time either working or with her girlfriend, and Serena slowly starts to put her life back together. Regular dinners with Jason, staying late to finish up paperwork, debating whether to put her house on the market.

The memories are still too painful, going home and seeing Elinor’s room. But this house is also where she and Bernie made love for the first time. It’s where Serena told Bernie she loved her. It’s where Jason had come to live with her. It’s where she’s thrown countless Christmas parties and spent such lovely times with her team. She’s a different person now, sure, but some things haven’t changed. Like her love for Bernie, the affection for her team, her love of medicine.

As she’s cleaning out her house, she finds the collection of notes Bernie had left her, even from before they had started dating. The note that came attached to the survival kit Bernie gave her, funny doodles Bernie would leave on Serena’s desk if she left before the start of Serena’s shift, small notes of love she would leave on the pillow if she had to leave early.

They’re all there, sitting in a large envelope, and Serena thinks maybe she really does still have a chance. If Bernie is really and truly happy with Andie, Serena should let her go. But if she still has a chance, if they still have a chance of a happy future together, doesn’t Serena owe it to the both of them to try?

She colors her hair back to the shade of brown she used to have – she’d started letting the gray grow out. She pays attention to her clothes, her make-up, makes sure to wear Bernie’s favorite perfume on her. She knows Bernie has noticed because she’ll stand next to Bernie at the nurses’ station and Bernie pauses for a second before turning to her with a smile. Serena will bump Bernie’s shoulder and say, “Hey friend.” Bernie chuckles and bumps her right back. Sometimes Serena will stay behind to help Bernie with her paperwork because as fast as that woman’s hand and mind are, her charting skills leave much to be desired.

Serena keeps pushing and pushing, little by little, until she thinks maybe she’s hit a nerve. One day, she drops the phrase occam’s razor in conversation with a waggle of her eyebrows, and instead of a smile or a chuckle, Bernie freezes for a second and then immediately changes the topic. The following day, she leaves Bernie a coffee with a note, “Remember when coffee was just coffee?”

Bernie walks into their office, reads the note, and then collapses into her chair, out of sight from where Serena is standing on the ward. She finishes up her patient, makes her way to the office to find Bernie slumped in her chair, staring at the note like it will come to life and bite off her hand.

“You alright?” Serena asks, and Bernie looks up, eyes heavy with emotion and just stares at Serena.

Serena barely has a second to see the glossy sheen of tears in Bernie’s eyes before Bernie jumps up and nearly sprints out of the ward. It takes Serena a few seconds to gather her bearings, turns around and Morven tilts her head towards the doors leading to the roof. She huffs up all four flights, pushes open the door to find Bernie sitting on the metal steps, staring off into the city.

“You need to stop,” Bernie says when the door slams shut behind Serena.

“Sorry?”

“I need you to stop,” Bernie says, and Serena steps closer until she is on the other side of the metal bridge.

“Stop what?”

“The notes, the messages, the memories you keep dredging back up,” Bernie says, her hands going around her own neck, massaging the muscles in the back.

Serena doesn’t know what to say to that, so she just takes a seat on the steps on the other side, and they sit like that, their backs to each other.

“I didn’t want to come back,” Serena says, pulling her sweater tightly over herself.

“Then why did you?”

“For you,” Serena says. Her answer is met with silence, and Serena turns around to find Bernie’s shoulders shaking. “Oh, Bernie, I’m so--” she reaches out, but Bernie shakes her off, pushes herself off the steps and stands. Serena follows, leans against the handrails as she watches Bernie wipe away tears and turn around.

“After Elinor, I realized, there wasn’t anything here that I couldn’t find anywhere else. Except you. No matter how far I went, I would always love you and miss you.”

Bernie shakes her head, and Serena crosses over the steps, the metal ringing under each step.

“I--” she pauses until Bernie turns towards her. “Can you honestly say that you’ve moved on?"

Bernie shakes her head slowly, wipes away another tear.

“Don’t, don’t you think we should give it another shot?” Serena asks, and Bernie shakes her head again. “Why not?”

“Because you left,” Bernie says, shoulders drooping.

Serena opens her mouth, except nothing comes out. Because Bernie’s right.

Bernie takes a few deep breaths, composes herself. “I understand why you had to take a sabbatical, why you wanted to get away. But then you decided we were over without giving me a choice in the matter.”

“It was just, too much, Bernie. I didn’t know if I would ever get better and--”

“I know. It was hard. But we could have taken a break. I could have gone out to see you. There were so many other ways to go about it, but you decided for us that it was over. And then, you told me to move on,” Bernie says. “And now you waltz back without giving me any warning, and suddenly you want me again? How long before you change your mind?”

“No, I won’t. This is what I want,” Serena says desperately, tears stinging as she tilts her head back. It had been on this roof, that she had told Bernie that she hoped she would be in her future. It’s hard to believe that was two years ago. Hope had been enough for Bernie. Just not enough for Serena, at least not then.

“I don’t, I don’t know if I can do this again,” Bernie says quietly.

“So, what, you’re in love with Andie?” Serena asks, tries to keep the venom out of her voice but fails to hide the jealousy.

“I don’t know. Yes, maybe,” Bernie says, and Serena feels more tears rolling down her cheek. “Getting over you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

So friends they stay. Serena promises to be on her best behavior. After all, Bernie is right. She decided to leave. She almost blurts out that Bernie left too, once. But she knows that Bernie leaving and Serena leaving are different, that there is no room for comparison.

They finally hug, the first hug Serena’s gotten from Bernie since coming back, and it feels so good she feels the prick of tears as she allows herself to be held, as she wraps her arms tightly around the woman she knows will always be the love of her life. Bernie’s strong arms hold her for longer than necessary, and Serena doesn’t let go until Bernie breaks her grip.

Bernie relaxes considerably after their rooftop reckoning, like a switch has been turned off, a valve unscrewed and the tension let out like the steam in a pressure cooker. Bernie doesn’t freeze every time Serena walks into a room, even mentions Andie in passing without batting an eyelash.

A few weeks later, AAU has another bonding session, this time dinner at a proper restaurant to celebrate Bernie’s birthday, and Andie comes. Serena makes nice, has her real first conversation with Andie. She hates it, absolutely hates it, but she actually kind of likes her. She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s very sweet to Bernie, and Bernie not just tolerates the affection she shows but actually accepts it, even in public, in front of her team.

Serena clenches her dinner napkin in her hand when Andie brushes Bernie’s fringe from her eyes. Territory Serena once claimed as her own. She takes a very large sip of wine when she notices Bernie’s hand disappear under the table, knows that it’s probably giving Andie’s leg a squeeze, a privilege once reserved for Serena’s thigh. And when the waitress brings out the cake and Bernie’s eyes light up over the flickering candles, Serena gets eye contact for a brief but glorious second, long enough for her heart to stop, short enough to be left breathless while Bernie turns to kiss her girlfriend on the cheek.

So Serena does what she always does best. She puts her own needs, her own desires aside. She was selfish for two years, if that’s what it can be called. Her therapist says taking care of herself is not a selfish act, but it’s hard to accept.

She puts on a smile, claps her way through dinner.

Come Monday, they’re back to coworkers. Serena manages to slip a small gift on Bernie’s desk before she arrives, something she had bought for her overseas. It’s a bracelet, one made of cloth and leather and stitched together by hand. She had walked into a small gift shop in a small town along the pacific coast highway in California, saw it and immediately thought of Bernie, of her leather jacket, had bought it for her just in case she ever returned to her. Then she had stood along the coast, feeling Bernie’s absence like a punch to the gut.

Serena starts grabbing coffee for Bernie when she’s down at Pulses for a pick-me up, and Bernie now accepts her small bribes without hesitation. Sometimes Serena will come back from a long surgery to find a pain au chocolate waiting for her on her desk.

They start taking lunch together out on the roof. It had started out as a convenience – hack out administrative details over a meal. But then they still go to lunch, even when they don’t have much work to do. Bernie smirks and rolls her eyes at Serena’s corny jokes. She’ll tell stories about her children, about how Charlotte just got signed at a major law firm. How her parents are doing. Sometimes Dom will join them.

Bernie never mentions Andie, well, rarely ever mentions her. Sometimes Serena will ask, just to be polite, to show she is being supportive, and Bernie answers in her caveman grunts so Serena leaves well enough alone.

Serena talks about what she did abroad, the places she visited.

“I wish you’d told me about these places while you were there,” Bernie says one day over lunch, and Serena turns her with wide eyes. She thought Bernie didn’t want to bring it all up.

“It was, I’ve been depressed before. This was something else entirely. I wasn’t sure I would ever be normal again,” Serena offers.

“Mm,” Bernie says before shrugging and bringing up the upcoming surgery they’ll be sharing.

Sometimes Serena sees Bernie leaving with Cameron and Morven and Jasmine in tow and her heart clenches in jealousy. Not because Bernie still has her kids, no because they get to claim Bernie’s time. Because Morven used to be Serena’s mentee and pupil and now she’s Bernie’s, entirely Bernie’s. because she wasn’t here to see Morven blossom from an eager junior doctor to a skillful registrar.

Still, Serena accepts it, does her best to chug along. But one night, Cam and Morven invite Serena to dinner, and Bernie smiles and says, “Why not?”

They order too many bottles of wine. By the end of the night, everyone is giddy and red-faced from laughing too hard. Morven and Cam call an uber back to their place. Serena and Bernie decide to split a taxi, and Serena takes a walk down memory lane as drunken Bernie cuddles up to Serena once they’re settled in the cab. Serena can smell the shampoo in her hair, the soap on her skin, and swallows hard when Bernie’s arm wraps around her middle.

“Mm, I forgot how comfortable you are,” Bernie says, and Serena manages a chuckle.

“Ah, yes, the Serena Campbell pillow service, at your disposal,” Serena says, and Bernie honks out a laughter that garners a look from the cab driver.

“Andie isn’t good at cuddling,” Bernie says.

“Is that so?”

“Mm she doesn’t like it. Plus, she’s too bony,” Bernie says.

“Well, that’s no good,” Serena says breathily as she feels Bernie’s hand on her arm. That had been most surprising once she and Bernie had started being intimate, just how affectionate and cuddly Bernie Wolfe could be, like one could never imagine she was a war-hardened soldier.

Serena drops Bernie off at her house, where she finds Andie waiting for Bernie. She opens the door, helps deposit Bernie on her bed.

“Late night?” Andie asks, and Serena nods. “She and I were supposed to have dinner."

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Serena says, not sure why she’s apologizing to Bernie’s girlfriend for Bernie’s scheduling snafu.

“Oh, no, not your fault,” Andie says, offers to make a cup and Serena doesn’t know why, but she decides to stay.

Once they’ve got steaming mugs in front of them, a barrier of steam of ward of the awkwardness, Andie takes a deep breath and lets out a long sigh.

“She’s going to choose you,” she says, and Serena jerks her head up in surprise.

“Excuse me?

“Bernie, she’s going to go back to you,” Andie says.

“You don’t know that. You two seem very committed,” Serena says.

“She told me about your talk. Look, I’m not an idiot. I knew from the start that she wasn’t really over you, that I’d probably never get all of her to myself. I just thought since you weren’t coming back, I would have been happy with even a part of Bernie,” Andie says, her voice simultaneously sad and full of affection. Serena knows, what it’s like to be in love with Berenice Wolfe, the effect she has on a person.

“I’m sorry,” Serena says.

“No, I mean, it sucks. But, I suppose it was never meant to be, me and her. But you two,” she says. “Bernie’s pretty fantastic.”

“I know,” Serena says.

Serena steadfastly avoids Bernie after the talk. Maybe it’s self-preservation. Maybe she’s giving Bernie space for what she hopes is to come. But the wide berth she gives Bernie seems to be reciprocated, until one day, she’s sitting out in the peace garden, taking a moment to herself when Bernie shows up, staring off into space. She startles when she sees Serena, apologizes.

“Sorry, I can go,” she offers, and Serena shakes her head.

“No, I don’t mind company,” Serena says, so Bernie sits on the bench next to her, stares off into the bushes. “Are you alright?”

“I think so?” Bernie says. “Theoretically, I shouldn’t be. Maybe it’ll hit me later. But I feel perfectly fine, and I don’t think that’s normal.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

“Andie broke up with me,” she says.

“Oh.”

“She um, she says it was obvious I wasn’t in love with her, that I was in fact, in love with someone else,” Bernie says.

“Did she now?”

Serena heart starts to hammer in her chest, and she holds her breath. It feels like one of those moments that will define the rest of her life. Serena thought she was done with those, when Elinor died. But she’s back here, and it somehow feels like she’s back on the edge of something new. It’s thrilling, terrifying, unfamiliar and yet entirely familiar.

Bernie then reaches for Serena’s hand, laces their fingers together. Serena squeezes, holds on tight.

“Apparently I’ll never stop loving you,” Bernie whispers, squeezing Serena’s hand and Serena could cry from relief if she doesn’t faint from lack of oxygen. “What do you think?”

“I say, ding dong,” Serena says, and Bernie chuckles. Serena is so lost in the sensation of Bernie’s body shaking next to hers that she doesn’t realize Bernie has turned her head until she is being kissed. She closes her eyes, cherishes the touch, the taste of Bernie, something she thought she’d lost forever.

Bernie pulls away, and Serena feels tears stream down her face but she can’t stop smiling, knows Bernie’s beaming smile is reflected right back at her.

“Guess you’re stuck with me Campbell,” Bernie says.

“Good,” Serena says, pulling Bernie in for another kiss.


End file.
